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// Political Context - Their Majesties' Government 
// Story: A 14th Century Supplement in Celestia's Court 
// by Antiquarian 
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Despite the fact that proportionally few of the readers of 14th Century Friar will read this aside, I spent a great deal of time pondering how I wanted Equestria’s political structure to be portrayed in the fic. Before I get into describing that structure, however, I need to clarify some things.

I went back and forth for a long time whether or not to include this segment, the reason being that politics are so contentious these days that even mentioning it can be enough to end a party or destroy friendships (on the other hand, talking about Star Wars VIII can be enough to do that anymore, so maybe we just need to cool off in general). That saddens me because, frankly, we need to talk about it. We need a free exchange of ideas. We need each other. Conservatives need liberals and liberals need conservatives and everyone who doesn’t fit neatly into one category or the other (i.e. most of us) needs everyone else.  People on both sides of the political aisle used to be able to cooperate. They still do, to an extent (bills about prison reform and relief for victims of ISIS genocide passed with bipartisan support in the last couple years), but it’s nowhere near as good as it used to be. 

With this in mind, I went to great lengths to create a Coalition Government in the Equestrian Government (elaborated on below) which is a fusion of liberal, conservative, and independent movements, united against the shared threat of tyranny. I say ‘shared threat’ because, truly, tyranny is a threat to everyone. Even the people who support it are in danger from it. Tyranny may come from the Right or the Left, but while it may wear many masks, it always has the same face underneath it: the destruction of human rights and the degradation of human freedom. Systems and ideologies which truly oppose tyranny with freedom, whatever form they take, are to be praised. And I was very deliberate when I said ‘oppose tyranny with freedom’ because it is not enough to oppose tyranny with an answering tyranny – if your enemy oppresses you it does not magically justify using terrorism against him, just as your acts of terrorism do not justify his tyranny. Evil is evil, and it is the enemy of all things good and free.

People will likely say, “Antiquarian has a political message in his story.” Well, that’s right. I do. My message is that I would fight and die to preserve Freedom and oppose Tyranny, and you should all feel the same way. I don’t care if you’re liberal, conservative, independent, or any other color of the political rainbow – your allies are those who are friends of freedom, and your enemies are those who attack freedom – if that means that your allies are on the other side of the political fence and your enemies share your party, well, so be it. You don’t need to jump the fence from conservative to liberal or liberal to conservative or anything else to work with other people to face off against that which threatens you all. Stop talking about Right and Left and start talking about Right and Wrong. 

Which is why I’m making the following request: don’t talk about modern politics in the comments. Don’t go anywhere beyond high concept. At least, don’t do it here. If you want to talk about it somewhere else, PM each other; start a blog post and invite people to the thread; heck, create a group on fimfiction called ‘the political implications of A 14th Century Friar’ if you feel like it. You can even comment on this story to let people know it exists and invite them to the discussion. If it strikes my fancy I may even pop over and throw in my two cents. 

Just don’t do it here.

Why, you ask? Well because, frankly, I don’t feel like moderating a political debate in my comments section. I want people to talk, just not here. Politics may be a part of this story, but mostly that’s at the high concept level rather than the nitty gritty, and it’s not the core of what A 14th Century Friar is about. I refuse to let the comments section turn it into something it isn’t.

And, frankly, most of the political commentary isn’t even relevant. The conservatives, liberals, etc. in this story aren’t based off of anything modern in American or English politics. The most recent reference I make to anything real world is WWII-era and relates specifically to the conduct of certain people, not the parties or their philosophies as a whole. Most of the rest is either based on 1800s vintage English politics with the ever-changing Tories and Whigs and the dozen or so other parties which shifted around them (with a dash of American politics from the same era), or else is based on fictional political parties (some of which aren’t published anywhere because they’re from scrapped story ideas of mine). So talking about Brexit or the 2016/2020 elections is not just obnoxious; it’s also inaccurate.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: IF YOU START PUTTING MODERN POLITICS DOWN IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BEYOND INVITING PEOPLE TO A CONVERSATION ON A DIFFERENT PLATFORM, I WILL BLOCK YOUR COMMENT! I hate doing that, because I despise censorship and want to foster open communication, but I refuse to let my story become a political battleground if I can stop it. Please, if you want to discuss it, I encourage you to respectfully do so. Seriously, go talk about these things. Just don’t do it here. 





Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. I took great pains to craft a government which merged conservative and liberal ideas. I wrote the government this way to make an important point about politics and statecraft: namely, that we need both liberal and conservative thought in order for our society to flourish.

Broadly speaking, classical liberal thought is the fire that keeps us looking for ways to progress in our society, while classical conservative thought is the caution that keeps us from progressing in the wrong direction. Each acts as a counterbalance to the other; the latter to keep us from diving into danger while the former to keep us from stagnating. 

It is important to remember that both conservativism and liberalism are nebulous concepts. They change with the times, and the moral high ground shifts with them. Sometimes conservatives dominate the true moral high ground, sometimes liberals do, and sometimes it is shared more or less equitably between the two. Sometimes the moral high ground is clear enough to both sides that they are able to compromise on technical differences so as to serve the greater good. Sometimes, one line of thinking has become so entrenched in the wrong that the other is forced to go it alone to prevent catastrophe. But, in the end, it always follows the swing of the pendulum. Depending on the context, what makes someone conservative now might have made them a liberal a century ago. It is for this reason that we must always be mindful that labels, while useful for discussing broad concepts and terms, should be used sparingly in defining thought and even more sparingly in defining people. In fact, I prefer not to label people as ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal,’ but as favoring one or the other as those concepts currently stand, always taking into account that such generalizations are vague and prone to change. 

Living in a prosperous and safe society brings with it many privileges, among them having the free time to devote to contemplation of higher things. This time of contemplation is an essential part of how society grows and matures. It brings with it a danger, however. That danger is simply this: when people become too far removed from the immediacy of suffering, they often begin to contemplate actions which would send up warning signals if suffering were more imminent. The actions might be well-intentioned, but they can be quite deadly all the same. A man who has never known the pain of war may make war more lightly than a soldier who has drunk from that bitter cup. A man who has never known true poverty and hardship may interpret malice where there is merely a difference of wealth. When people forget what tyranny looks like, their senses become dulled to warning signs. So, when a dynamic speaker comes and tells them that they can make life even better, all the signals that might have tipped off someone who recently escaped a despot go right over the head of someone with a more peaceful life. Right or Left, everyone is susceptible to such lies.

This is more or less what I envision to be plaguing Equestria: with a thriving economy, an equitable society, and generally high standards of living, too many have become soft and complacent. They’ve forgotten what tyranny really is, so they’re vulnerable to someone coming along and telling them that they’re being oppressed, that they’re in grave danger, that they deserve more than they’re getting without doing anything, etc. And this line of thinking has poisoned parties on both the Right and the Left, making Equestria Parliament increasingly partisan and extreme. 

Fortunately, Celestia is no fool, and she has capable ponies serving her. Their Majesties’ Government is, as such, an entity formed specifically to combat this myriad of threats to stability. 

With all this in mind, I would like to reiterate that Their Majesties’ Government is not intended to make reference to any modern political party (for that matter, neither are the unions – like the real world, they’re a mix of good and bad, with legitimate activism on one side and cynical agitation on the other). The philosophies espoused by the three parties of the Coalition Government are drawn from a mixture of fiction and history, and (amongst the latter), from parties which are at least six decades old and, for that matter, primarily of the English rather than American variety. 

Their Majesties’ Government

Equestria is a Constitutional Monarchy. Its Parliament is composed of representatives of the various city states which fall under the rule of the Crown. In this respect, it is similar to the English system with the added twist that the city states and their respective governments have authority somewhat akin to the individual states of the United States – they are largely self-governing in most matters, but still form a unified Equestrian State. It should also be noted that the Equestrian Crown wields considerably more direct power than the English equivalent (though not without certain restrictions, among them being the rights of city states so withdraw support from the Crown). This system evolved from the Medieval Period of Equestrian history, wherein individual lords, chieftains, elders, and other civic leaders all swore fealty to the Equestrian Crown in return for unified protection from foreign threats and an assurance of equitable trade amongst its members (the latter being an especially important stipulation, given the lingering divisions between the Three Tribes at the time). The system became more formalized after Celestia and Luna took power following Discord’s defeat, ultimately culminating in the modern system. 

Their Royal Majesties’ Government is led by the Prime Minister (presently Duke Golden Crown, aka ‘Fancy Pants’), who selects all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee known as the Cabinet. The Government ministers all sit in Parliament and are accountable to it. General Elections are held every five years to elect a new House of Commons, unless there is a successful vote of no confidence in the Government or a two-thirds vote for a snap election in the House of Commons, in which case an election may be held sooner. After an election, the principle ruler in the Diarchy (in this case Celestia) selects as Prime Minister the leader of the party most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons, usually by possessing a majority of MPs (Member of Parliament). This may be achieved by a single party holding the majority (as the Crown Loyalists did prior to the current sitting government) or through a coalition Government composed of multiple parties whose interests align. 

Their Royal Most Loyal Opposition is comprised of the parties not within the sitting Government. Traditionally, it is led by the pony whose party has the largest number of seats of any party in the Opposition. When the Crown Loyalists were the dominant party, the Labour Party was the core of the Opposition and the Labour Party’s Lady Juniper Rose was its leader. When the Opposition is more ideologically divided, however (as it is presently), this convention may be eschewed. 

Many of the political battles over the years have been waged over the relative authority of the executive (in this case Celestia and, more recently, Luna), the central government (Parliament), and local government (mostly mayors and governors with the occasional hereditary noble). Hundreds of different parties have emerged over the years around particular interests and causes (like the Equal Representation Alliance, which sought and gained restrictions on the degree to which local authorities could tax the common pony, and Silver Standard Party, which sought unsuccessfully to replace the Equestrian Bit with silver currency). However, while party names, ideologies, and emphases change with shifting political currents and the passage of interests from one party to another, there are two basic ideologies which have persisted around the basic distribution of power. Broadly speaking, they are the Tories (who favor a strong executive, strong local governance, and weak central government) and the Whigs (who favor the opposite). Many different names and agendas have been attached to both the Tories and Whigs (with certain agendas switching sides multiple times in the same century), but the basics have remained the same. Traditionally,  the Tories have been more fiscally conservative and the Whigs more fiscally liberal, but the degree to which this is true has often fluctuated, and social change (both positive and negative) has come at different times from both. 

The current Government (known generally as the Tri-Party Government) was formed as a Coalition Government from three political parties as a way to pool their resources and unite against rising extremism from parties such as Equestria First, the Primarchists, and the Populists. In an ironic twist, the various moderate MPs on both the right and the left were increasingly being labelled as ‘extremists’ for their dedication to statecraft and compromise. The Crown Loyalist Government was risking a loss of control to more dangerous political rivals on either the far Right or the far Left as MPs were defecting to more extreme parties. Meanwhile, the Labour Party (up to that point the most prominent Opposition Party) was experiencing similar losses. Worried about the future of Equestria should parties such as the Equestria First Party or the Populists take power, Duke Golden Crown (‘Fancy Pants’) approached the Labour Party and the emerging Centrist Party with the proposal of a Coalition Government. While the new coalition is unusual, skillful diplomacy has made it a shockingly effective government. Though the member parties often differ over the specifics of certain policies, they retain the same core values (albeit often for different reasons) and have been able to find sufficient common ground to operate. The Centrists’ insistence on slow, sweeping reform has kept change at a manageable level for all (though critics often grow impatient). 

For example, the Crown Loyalists favored granting full executive powers to Luna upon her return. This was unacceptable to the Labour Party, who would have preferred that her title of ‘Princess’ remain largely ceremonial. A compromise was found stipulating (among many other details) that Luna would be a junior executive to Celestia, would gain full executive powers only if Celestia were incapacitated, and that any executive powers which Luna wielded when Celestia was not incapacitated would only by those ceded to her (and renounced on her own part) by Celestia. This, incidentally, is why the great hall has only one throne.

As another example, the REF intervention in the Kudandan Genocide was supported by all three parties. For the Crown Loyalists, it was a matter of noblesse oblige for Equestria to protect those who could not protect themselves. For the Labour Party, it was a matter of preventing the most egregious form of exploitation. For the Centrists, it was a matter of being good neighbors. For all three parties, it was a matter of protecting sapient beings from being massacred simply because it was the right thing to do.  

These compromises, and others like them, have enabled the Tri-Party Government to hold the majority in Parliament and maintain a well-functioning system in spite of the rising power of the more extreme Opposition leaders. 

The Crown Loyalist Party (known as ‘Tories’ or ‘CLP’ in parlance) draw inspiration from certain aspects of English Tories and from the Crown Loyalist Party in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series (who might be likened unto space-age Tories). 

They are a socially and fiscally conservative party with strong ties to the old noble houses and the communities which grew around them. Their core belief is that those with the capability have a solemn duty to serve the people. This principle is drawn from the old sense of noblesse oblige, dating back to early Equestria when lords and ladies were expected to live (and often die) by this standard. They favor a strong executive and publicly support the Crown at virtually every term. However, contrary to common belief, they are not ‘Yes-Ponies.’ Privately, they can be quite vocal in voicing their concerns to Celestia, and it is an established fact that, should she ever turn tyrannical, the Crown Loyalists would be amongst the first to seek her removal, by force if necessary. They generally emphasize the authority of local governments more than that of Parliament, a tradition which has its roots in a period where Celestia cooperated well with the local lords and governors to serve and govern the people while the courtiers of Canterlot largely schemed. As such, they are often popular which those who favor small government and minimal central oversight, which has led to strong constituencies in towns like Appleoosa, despite the lack of any direct connection to the noble houses.

The party suffered losses when the Primarchist Party was formed, as many of the wealthiest and most influential members of the CLP (including a significant number of Canterlot MPs) defected. They also lost a goodly number of constituents because the Primarchists had given them such a bad name; many conservative voices amongst the commoners felt that the nobles of the CLP did not properly represent their interests (despite the fact that the nobility is now the minority within the CLP MPs). In spite of their losses, however, the core of the CLP remains strong, its primary constituencies being populations with old ties to nobility (like Trottingham and Edinburro) and populations with historical ties to Celestia who favor local governance (like Ponyville). Notable members include Prime Minister Duke Golden Crown (generally called ‘Fancy Pants’), Lord Lionheart,* and Edmare Burke.*

 

The Labour Party (known as ‘Whigs’ in parlance) draw inspiration from the later days of the Whig party (when their concerns were on addressing the grievous poverty in England and, in a reversal from their traditional antipathy towards Catholicism, on advocating for the emancipation of Catholics under the law). They also draw inspiration from certain members of the Labour Party of England during World War II -men who reached across party lines to work with Tory MPs to oppose England’s failure to honor its alliance with Poland when the Nazis and Soviets invaded. These same Labour MPs would later to join those same Tories in opposing the government’s second betrayal – when Poland was essentially sold to the Soviets (regrettably, they were unsuccessful). 

The Equestrian Labour Party is a moderate liberal party with a strong emphasis on preventing exploitation on both foreign and domestic fronts.  Their legacy dates back to the nobles and other civic leaders who pushed early reforms following the Unification – a time when lingering prejudices kept the tribes somewhat separated and certain communities economically subservient (they were strong allies of the Equal Representation Alliance at the time). They are the most fiscally liberal member of the coalition government, but the wealth of the country and the prolific nature of its private social programs has made this a less contentious issue than it might otherwise have been, since local charities render government aid largely superfluous in many regions anyway. Historically more contentious has been their favoring of a weaker executive and a stronger Parliament, but concessions from Celestia (like those made after Luna’s return) have made for a generally positive working relationship in recent years.

The Labour Party has faced heavy losses to the Populists and other smaller parties, especially in areas where unrest has been stirred up between competing factions, but they retain strong loyalties in many large cities like Manehattan and Fillydelphia, which were founded without Royal Charter or a history of noble houses. Noted members include Green Wood,* Plum Pit,* and Lady Juniper Rose.

 

The Centrists, like the CLP, draw loose inspiration from David Weber. They also contain an assortment of independent parties on both ends of the political spectrum from both American and English history; mostly the sort which were founded with a specific mission in mind (like ending slavery or gaining voting rights for women).

The Centrists are often said to be a fitting linchpin for a coalition government because they are a coalition party. They were formed by a gathering of moderate conservatives who weren’t members of the Crown Loyalists but rejected the more extreme parties like the Primarchists, by liberal MPs from smaller parties who had alienated their original parties by supporting military intervention (see below), and by independents who didn’t exactly fit the any other constituencies. 

Unlike the Crown Loyalists and Labour Party, the Centrists have no one member of the Opposition that is their direct shadow. The closest would be the Equestria First Party, which (as will be elaborated on below) is isolationist, nativist, and supremacist in nature. The Centrists have a large number of nationalists in their ranks, but, unlike the EFP, their idea of patriotism is to improve Equestria by any means that will achieve that goal while retaining the values which make them strong in the first place. Thus, they are welcoming of immigrants with compatible value systems, wildly open to trade, and make no distinction between an Equestrian pony and an Equestrian griffon. They are proud of Equestrian values, but, recognizing that Equestria was founded on Three Tribes becoming more than the sum of their parts, they are willing to accept new ideas when those ideas bring genuine enrichment. 

On the whole, the Centrists are flexible moderates who tend to support local governance, oppose deficit spending, and favor slow, sweeping social and economic reform. They are less fiscally conservative than the Crown Loyalists, but more fiscally conservative than the Labour Party. They are prepared to favor strengthening or weakening the executive and Parliament as needed, and often act as mediator between the CLP and Labour Party. They are supportive of both military and relief intervention overseas, but only so long as it is truly relief (not rule) and does not place undue burden upon Equestria. Given that Celestia has never espoused imperialistic interests, they’ve been largely satisfied. They have also been prominent voices in fighting the slave trade overseas, and as such have often been a gathering point for activists from both sides of the aisle. Immigrants and refugees who have come seeking the Equestrian dream often vote Centrist; a common joke in the Griffish Isles is that it’s easier to find a pacifist dragon than it is to find a Griffon Islander who doesn’t vote Centrist. Prominent members include Will Windforce,* F.O. Douglass,* and Gerhardt Griff**. 



The Opposition

Typically, there is one major Opposition party which heads the resistance to the Government. However, the very partisanship which pushed most all the vaguely moderate MPs into the Government also divided the Opposition. Individually, certain Opposition parties (like the Populists) out-mass individual parties of the Government. However, while the Government has unified to offset this imbalance, most of the Opposition parties with clout despise each other and only unify on certain issues out of uncomfortable convenience. 

For instance, the Populists and the Primarchists both oppose foreign efforts (the former out of a fear of Celestial Imperialism, the latter out of the sense that the rest of the world isn’t worth Equestria’s time unless it directly enriches them).

There are currently eight Opposition parties of various sizes in the Equestrian Parliament, but only three have the clout to be significant on their own. 

The Primarchists are the rich, stuck-up, narrow-minded ultra-conservative ‘nobles’ that give Canterlot and other old blood cities a bad name. Most are former Crown Loyalists, but they split from the party either because A) they felt that noblesse oblige should only come after the ‘common ponies’ had suitably made obeisance to them and/or B) they felt that Celestia should really just let them rule instead, being that they are, of course, the most qualified. The CLP lost a lot of seats when the Primarchists broke away, but most were happy to see them go; they gave the CLP a bad name that it’s still struggling to rebrand. Their constituency draws heavily from Canterlot and a few other such old cities, but nowhere else. They are wealthy enough to be dangerous, but have no room to expand without help. Lord High Castle is the de facto leader of the Primarchists, though Prince Blueblood has been known to attend their functions.

The Equestria First Party is largely inspired by the so-called “Know Nothings” of the American 1850s. And, yes, that was a real thing. The Know Nothings (ironically called the Native American Party in their own documentation) started as a secret society on the anti-immigration, xenophobic, and above all anti-Catholic platform. They believed in a Roman conspiracy to take over the world, and if you think they were just a bunch of nutters with no influence, watch One Man’s Hero starring Tom Berenger some time. It’s not about the Know Nothings, but it does show how deeply imbedded that kind of thinking was – a lot of people believed that conspiracy. In any case, the EFP isn’t that different. They’re xenophobic in the extreme, would like to see all foreign efforts by Equestria cut off (save for those which rescue ‘proper’ Equestrian ponies), and feel that Celestia is a well-meaning but weak executive. Paranoia is their watchword, and about the only thing they agree with the Government on regularly is the importance of the military (if anything, the EFP would like to see a massive increase in the military). 

The Populists are a hard-left political movement which advocates for the abolition of wealth inequality and for the State (specifically the Parliament) to be responsible education, social programs, the market, public works, and more, depending on the stridency of the MP in question. They favor nigh-total centralization of the State though, significantly, they also favor the restriction of Executive power to little more than a figurehead, and loudly cry for an end to the nobility (though, ironically, there are a few nobles amongst their ranks).  They enjoy enthusiastic support in many of the large cities of Equestria, especially those riven with significant gaps in wealth, and are trendy amongst the youth, especially the university-educated ponies from upper-middle class and wealthy families. 

(Incidentally, if you go back to the populist movements even in the ancient world, you will see this basic trend remaining more or less unchanged across thousands of years. At least 75% of these factors are present in most such movements that I’ve studied, including both the less extreme movements that actually had some positive qualities to the outright horrifying ones. As a couple examples, consider Mazdak’s followers in Iran in the 500s, the French Revolution, and a disturbingly high number of  tyrannical regimes that arose in Europe from the 1920s-50s).







* Denotes the characters at least loosely inspired by real-world individuals, and are described below. 

F.O. Douglass is a reference to Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolitionist orator, statesman, and social reformer. He was an outspoken suffragist and worked tirelessly for the equal treatment of all people, regardless of race, sex, or creed. He reached across political, social, and religious aisles to unite all people of goodwill. The name ‘Frederick Douglass’ didn’t lend itself to ponification, so here’s the backstory for F.O. Douglass:

Born in slavery outside Equestria, the earth pony never knew his birth parents; he was raised by two donkey slaves who named him ‘Douglass’ after their own conventions. His adoptive parents died in bondage, but he escaped to Equestria. After becoming naturalized, he threw himself into activism. The self-educated stallion’s gift for speaking earned him the nickname ‘Free Orator.’ He accepted the name graciously, but it is always secondary to the name his adoptive parents gave him. He is one of the most prominent members of the Centrist Party and, with Windforce, the leader of its anti-slavery arm. The two of them chair the Special Committee for Ending Sentient-Trafficking by order of the Princess. The operation which Morning Song alluded to that brought her into the REF was spearheaded by Douglass and Windforce.

Windforce is a reference to William Wilberforce – that powerhouse of a human being who fought so hard to end slavery in England in the 1800s. His success would lead ultimately to slavery being outlawed in international law. Windforce is similar in tone and personality.

Lord Lionheart and Green Wood are references to Leo Amery (a British Tory MP) and Arthur Greenwood (a British Labour MP) who, though on opposite sides of the political aisle in WWII, decried the Chamberlain Government’s betrayal of Poland and appeasement of the Nazis. When Greenwood rose to condemn the (Tory) Chamberlain Government and said he would speak for Labour, a furious Amery bellowed, “Speak for England!” implicitly proclaiming that Chamberlain wasn’t. They would be unlikely allies in their shared opposition of tyranny and would later object to the second betrayal of Poland later in the war. 

Lionheart, like the man who inspired him, is a fiery and unapologetic conservative. Liberal Green Wood is more tempered in tone, but just as bold in standing for his beliefs and as passionate in doing so.

Edmare Burke is the daughter of her predecessor, Edmane Burke, who himself is a reference to one of my favorite statesmen, Edmund Burke. The realworld Edmund Burke was characterized by his liberal sensibilities, which drove him to support social and state reform, equality under the law, and the American colonial resistance to unjust treatment by the English (though not the Revolution itself). He was also characterized by his conservative caution, which warned him against the bloodbath that would eventually spill from the French Revolution. For his unique blend of passion for progress and caution to not progress in the wrong direction, both conservatives and liberals have admired him over the centuries. 

Edmane is styled to be more or less a ponified Burke and a Whig before he was a Tory, with his daughter having much the same temperament, though with a sharper tongue, an irreverent wit, and a more staunchly Tory outlook. 

Plum Pit is a reference to William Pitt the Elder, a Whig statesman noted for his opposition to corruption (including his outspoken criticism of the hilariously corrupt Robert Walpole), for his service to the common people, for his patriotism, and for his sympathy towards the American position leading up to the Revolutionary War (much like Burke, he saw the injustice and questionable legality of taxation without representation). 

Plum Pit is an ally to the common pony and an outspoken opponent of all government corruption, regardless of party. As he has been routinely picked by the Crown to head up investigations of misuse of funds and abuse of power, he’s made a lot of enemies.  



**Though not based on any one specific thing, I was pleased with the backstory for Gerhardt Griff and wanted to share.

Gerhardt Griff is a proud descendent of the first griffon settlers to Equestria after the Great Diaspora – the mass emigration of griffons out of their hereditary kingdoms in the east and into new lands during and after the cataclysmic Six Years’ War, which involved many of the griffon kingdoms and led to the fall of no less than ten governments. Most of the griffon immigrants who settled in Equestria did so on the western reaches of what came to be called the Griffish Isles, and now make up around fifty percent of the Isles’ population. Ponies and a small but significant number of donkeys and mules account for the majority of the eastern half of the Isles, mostly centered around Edinburro and Trottingham, while the griffons are the majority on the western half around such cities as Griffony and Talondon. The equine and griffon halves of the island possess cultures distinct from each other, but they share a broader hybrid culture which makes them distinct from the mainland, and generally will support other islanders over mainlanders in matters of state, sports, culinary preferences, and the like. 

While the equine side of the Isles has traditionally been the stomping grounds of the Whigs and Tories (now the Labour and Crown Loyalist Parties, respectively), the griffon side spawned a number of more unique independent parties, most notably the Griffish Patriotic Movement. 

The GPM was characterized on one hand by a love for business, business, and more business. They favored big business, small business, and everything in between, with minimal restrictions on trade both foreign and domestic and strong market incentives. However, much to the shock of many mainlanders, they were also markedly pro-Union. This hearkens back to the early post-Diaspora years, when unscrupulous business leaders, both griffon and pony, exploited the immigrant workers. The Griffish unions were founded to combat this exploitation. However, thanks in large part to the profit-oriented griffon mindset, the unions were quite in favor of creating wealth – so long as everyone was getting a piece of the pie. With Whig support, the unions worked with more equitably minded business owners to create a business environment where businesses profited by ensuring that customers and employees were treated well, thus ensuring repeat business and driving less ethical competitors out of business. They also incentive cooperation from businesses by offering extensive training to union members, bringing up the general quality of the labor pool. To this day, the Griffish Unions remain notable for following this model, which has enabled a fair degree of stability in the labor market of the Isles (both equine and griffon), and has attracted alliances from both conservative and liberal politicos. It has often put them at odds with other unions, however, whenever they perceive those unions as acting irrationally against businesses, and they often lament of the inability of protesters to know the difference between ‘bog standard rotters’ (unethical but ordinary business owners and politicos who may be overcome with careful maneuvering) and ‘proper gits’ (genuinely dangerous individuals who genuinely require hard-line responses). 

The GPM was also noted for being vehemently proud of its nation and its ruler. This has its roots in the patriotism of the early griffon settlers who left their war-torn homelands to find peace and opportunity in Equestria. Though not always well-treated, especially in the early years, the Griffish griffons ultimately proved to be among the most loyal of Celestia’s supporters, with many of them serving in the military. The 4th Talondon Fusiliers, for instance, has had their motto as ‘Sol Vincit’ (the Sun Conquers) for six centuries, and were so noted for their devotion to the princess that it spawned a popular saying amongst the pony soldier in reference to the Griffish griffons – “Converts are the worst.”  (It should be noted that Celestia is both flattered and somewhat uncomfortable with their devotion).

Gerhardt Griff, affectionately called the “Old Tom of Talondon,” is seen as the quintessential Griffish griffon and GPM member, having been a union dock worker, a master shipwright and business owner, and a highly decorated member of the 4th Talondon Fusiliers. Plainspoken to the point of abrasiveness and utterly honest, he despises rich and powerful individuals who exploit the masses almost as much as he despises those who take advantage of the exploitation to whip the masses up in a cynical bid for power. 

Though a significant power amongst the smaller parties in Parliament, the GPM and other such independent parties which did not fit neatly as conservative or liberal faced the prospect of losing their seats in the face of the rising polarization caused by the major Opposition parties. Recognizing the danger, Gerhardt Griff led them to join the emerging Centrists, thereby to concentrate their power until such time as the winds shift again and allow the dissolution of the Centrists. Having been both friend and foe to CLP and Labour Party in the past, the GPM (with Griff at its helm) has been instrumental in ensuring cooperation between the old rivals.